Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 21st Jun 2012 22:40 UTC
John Goerzen, Debian/GNU Linux developer, transitions his kids from bash to xmonad: "I'd been debating how to introduce GUIs for a very long time. It has not escaped my attention that children that used Commodores or TRS-80s or DOS knew a lot more about how their computers worked, on average, than those of the same age that use Windows or MacOS. I didn't want our boys to skip an entire phase of learning how their technology works." I decided long ago that my kids - if I ever have them, I'm undecided and way too young - will learn computing the way I learned it: with a CLI. I never realised an xmonad setup would form a good transition phase into GUIs.
Thread beginning with comment 523246
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-09-14
It wasn't command line operations that made the eight bit micro appealing to kids.
It was the MBASIC interpreter.
Magazines like Creative Computing and Compute. Books like "100 BASIC Computer Games."
Each month delivering to your doorstep a dozen or more easy-to-read and understand programs.
Ready-to-Run.
I'd have to agree with this. In my case, it was a C128 rather than a TRS-80 but I can safely say that the combination of having a basic interpreter the moment you powered on + RUN magazine and its monthly program listings was one of the primary motivators that got me interested in software.
Member since:2011-04-27
No no it's not a valid count... Win 95 sales went straight to workers in offices, and the other 8 bit systems had good chances to land in houses with childrens.
Btw, I have two childrens 8 and 4 years and for my fun I helped this year teachers of the local primary school in teaching the so called "information tecnology".
So I can tell you some real truth:
1) adults without kids , when speaking of kids, are very funny...
2) ALL children of 6 in 2012 have seen a lot of GUIs, in TV sets, in consoles, in phones etc, and you can not deny you live in a world of (advanced?) GUIs to children, they aren't so stupid.
3) when back in the days I launched games with 'load "*",8,1' GUI was not so common, and I have really no alternatives.
4) I like me too the idea of initialize a geek kid now with a command line but I have realized is out of time, we in the eighties started with the edge of home computer tecnology, and our kids must start with today edge of tecnology; try to think of your dad in 1982 asking you to make a punch card !!!!!
RE[2]: Rear view mirror.
by westlake on Sat 23rd Jun 2012 00:44
in reply to "RE: Rear view mirror. "
Member since:2010-01-07
No no it's not a valid count... Win 95 sales went straight to workers in offices, and the other 8 bit systems had good chances to land in houses with childrens.
No.
No more than the enterprise and small business instantly migrated from MSDOS to Win 3.1 or from XP to Vista and Win 7.
Windows 95 made an explosive entry into the consumer market.
I can still vividly recall launching the "Good Times" video from the companion CD:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqL1BLzn3qc
In October 1996 AOL went to flat-rate monthly billing and our phone service (like others) to an affordable flat-rate calling plan.
I had struggled with E-mail. FTP. Telnet. BBS. IRC chat. USENET.
AOL was a revelation. Layer upon layer of complexity simply stripped away.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
Member since:2005-07-06
Sales of the TRS-80: 200,000 units.
Sales of the Apple II 5-6 million units.
Sales of the C-64: 12-17 million units.
1995 Sales of Windows 95: 40 million units.
Sales of the Apple II 5-6 million units.
Sales of the C-64: 12-17 million units.
1995 Sales of Windows 95: 40 million units.
Plus the yearly sales of OS don't nearly exhaust it - it's easier to pirate software than hardware; a practice quite widespread on home PCs in many places.
It's easy to forget how small the user base was in the CLI era.
How few kids had access to these machines.
[...]
It was the MBASIC interpreter.
Magazines like Creative Computing and Compute. Books like "100 BASIC Computer Games."
Each month delivering to your doorstep a dozen or more easy-to-read and understand programs.
Ready-to-Run.
How few kids had access to these machines.
[...]
It was the MBASIC interpreter.
Magazines like Creative Computing and Compute. Books like "100 BASIC Computer Games."
Each month delivering to your doorstep a dozen or more easy-to-read and understand programs.
Ready-to-Run.
Don't forget to explicitly mention that those few had, on average, much more interest in computers - a relatively likely trait of somebody insisting on getting one in the times when they weren't very accessible (both price and ~UI wise)
Features
Linked by David Adams on 05/16/13 4:23 UTC
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/11/13 21:41 UTC
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/02/13 15:28 UTC
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/18/13 11:21 UTC
Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/16/13 9:29 UTC
The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/15/13 22:44 UTC
Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote about why OSNews was no longer OSNews: the alternative operating system scene had died, and OSNews, too, had to go with the times and move towards reporting on a new wave of operating systems - mobile, and all the repercussions that the explosion of smartphones and tablets have caused. Still, I was wondering something today: why aren't we seeing alternative operating systems on mobile?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/14/13 18:22 UTC, submitted by MOS6510
You can say what you will about Windows Phone and Windows 8's Metro interface (I refuse to drop that name) - it's inefficient, unpopular, cumbersome, beautiful, ugly, organised, clean, limiting - but there's one thing we can all agree on: it's unique and distinctive. CNet has published a profile of Microsoft's Albert Shum, the man behind Metro, and he highlights what I think is at the very core of Microsoft's problems in mobile right now.More Features »
Sponsored Links
Member since:
2010-01-07
Sales of the TRS-80: 200,000 units.
Sales of the Apple II 5-6 million units.
Sales of the C-64: 12-17 million units.
1995 Sales of Windows 95: 40 million units.
It's easy to forget how small the user base was in the CLI era.
How few kids had access to these machines.
For example, adjusted for inflation, the 1977 Trash-80 cost $2100.
It wasn't command line operations that made the eight bit micro appealing to kids.
It was the MBASIC interpreter.
Magazines like Creative Computing and Compute. Books like "100 BASIC Computer Games."
Each month delivering to your doorstep a dozen or more easy-to-read and understand programs.
Ready-to-Run.